


Wherein Sulu pays a visit to Engineering

by kayliemalinza



Series: Rambleverse [43]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Enterprise, Gen, Kayliemalinza's Rambleverse, Pike's Reclaimed Captaincy (Rambleverse Timeline), Sulu POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt from LJ user possibly_thrice: "Scotty and Sulu rhapsodizing over the Enterprise"</p><p>Teaser: "Pike's got you on cross-training, has he?" Scotty says cheerfully, passing Sulu a pair of micro-plastic gloves. "Can't say I appreciate some of the blokes he sends down here, looking like they've never seen a wrench before, but I think you'll be alright. Mind you've got those pulled up all the way," he adds about the gloves, shoving up his sleeve to show Sulu a ring of raw, blistered skin around his left wrist. "The rotary lube burns something awful."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherein Sulu pays a visit to Engineering

"Pike's got you on cross-training, has he?" Scotty says cheerfully, passing Sulu a pair of micro-plastic gloves. "Can't say I appreciate some of the blokes he sends down here, looking like they've never seen a wrench before, but I think you'll be alright. Mind you've got those pulled up all the way," he adds about the gloves, shoving up his sleeve to show Sulu a ring of raw, blistered skin around his left wrist. "The rotary lube burns something awful."

"Uh, thanks," says Sulu. He slicks the gloves as far up his arms as he can manage. The micro-plastic fits even better than a second skin: thinner, more tensile, less susceptible to tearing. It molds to every crease on his palm and crinkles delicately above his knuckles. It looks like his hands have been dipped in green oil. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing for this shift," he says. "Captain Pike told me it was at your discretion."

"Did he, now?" Scotty says musingly. "Well, if the captain says it's my idea, then I guess that's what it is. Come on, lad. I've something to show you." He claps a hand on Sulu's back and steers him through the bustle of the lower decks, ducking ahead of him down corridors formed by the edges of machines and, once, nudging Sulu protectively to the side when three engineers trundle past with a blanket slung between them to carry a smoking twist of metal.

Scotty marks their passing with a solemn salute. "Breaks me heart, that does," he says. "A beautiful converter, toilin' away with nary a flaw or complaint, cut down in its prime."

"That's... tragic," Sulu says. He wonders if he ought to inquire as to the circumstances of the converter's dismal end, or if that would be insensitive.

"Don't worry," says Scotty. "This lady's built of stern stuff. A bit of welding, a new penny matrix, some TLC, and that converter'll be good as new. Have you done any repair work before?" he asks, pulling Sulu onto the leftmost catwalk at a junction.

"Basic maintenance," says Sulu, trying to sound polite even though he has to yell to be heard. "Mostly on shuttles, for emergency scenarios." He keeps his eyes to the back of Scotty's head: the scalloped margin of the bald spot, an oblong shadow beneath his ear, the quarter-view of an eye and nose when he glances back. This catwalk is narrower than the others, and reminds Sulu of wire bridges between buildings back home. Before he could afford a full dojo membership, the 60th floor bridge of his apartment was where he practiced fencing. It was the only surface long enough in a city full of sharp corners.

Sulu can run without hesitation across the grating but he still doesn't like to look down. The freefall on Vulcan, perhaps, reinforced this cowardice.

" _Enterprise_ is a mite more complicated than a shuttle, laddy," Scotty says with a laugh. It's a coincidence, of course, that a hot gust comes from below at the same time. The air is staticky and smells like copper; Sulu, remembering a lecture from Intro to Ships' Design, thinks they must be near the auxiliary ion catalyzer. He might be able to see the turbines, reflecting lights from their seams as they roil, but he won't look.

"Oi, who left this here?" Scotty shouts to no-one in particular, and pulls a chamois from his belt to scrub something viscous and opalescent from the rail. "I've half a mind to—" He quiets suddenly as the comm system whistles to preface an announcement. It's garbled; Sulu recognizes Commander Spock's voice but cannot make out the words above the melange of mechanical sounds.

Scotty understands, apparently, and beams at Sulu. "We've only a minute or so. Hurry up!" he cries, and clatters away. Sulu follows easily, matching his breaths to the clang of his boots, and slides down the ladder a mere second after Scotty. They're on solid decking again and Sulu dogs his heels as they sprint around columns as big as metro trains and shimmy through automatic doors that open too slowly.

Finally, Scotty pulls him into an auxilliary control room. It's too quiet, suddenly, and the lighting's on safety levels only, barely augmented by the fractured glow of the instrument panels. There's a bay window of transparent aluminum, but it's dark; Sulu has no idea what might lay beyond.

"Oh, good, we're not too late," Scotty says. He's almost breathless—someone's been slacking on their mandated fitness regime, it seems—but grins at Sulu anyway. "Come on, then," he says, gesturing at the gap between the two control panels. "Get right up to the window, Mr. Sulu, and take a good look."

"What am I looking at?" Sulu asks, stepping cautiously into the nook.

"Didn't you hear?" Scotty asks. "We're nearing an asteroid belt. _Enterprise_ is going into evasive maneuvers. Look, man, look!" he says again.

Sulu squeezes up the window as best he can. The cold hits him from barely an inch away and he narrowly avoids getting frostnip on his nose. This must be an external window, he realizes. Yes, if he peers down the angle of it he can see stars and the irregular blush of a nebula, truncated at the edges and sliced through the middle by pieces of _Enterprise_ herself.

"This is a rudder port!" he says, a bit stupidly, but Scotty just chuckles in affirmation and says,

"There she goes."

The dark line, a simple absence-of-light barely as long as Sulu's shiny hand (but he knows it is a blade taller than a building, checkered with sheet-plates wider than people; he saw it at Riverside, lying inert on the ground, and could not run the length of it in less than two minutes,) it is prowling across the nebula, erasing stars and revealing others, and then the whole port flashes white.

It is a trick of relative position, Sulu knows, an illusion created by the stark oval frame of the port, but still: the universe is moving. He cleaves to the window, his fingertips going numb through the gloves, until the nebula has been swept aside and asteroids appear. They are dank irregular things, glittering on their starward facets, shunting harmlessly past the edges of _Enterprise_.

"More impressive than buttons on a bridge console, isn't it, Mr. Sulu?" Scotty says softly.

Sulu is too enchanted to reply.


End file.
